In Novoostara Ryurik learned about some conditions further south. It was said that the Lovady River leading to Smolensk ran straight south. The Ostarans conducted some exploration, except for hunting. Nothing new was discovered except some squirrels and otters.
Men were responsible for pioneering, but their hometown in Northern Europe were all professional farmers. Their exploration did not extend too far, and no merchants from the south were found.
The forest is quiet, and the presence of birds and animals accentuates the silence here. It seems that a large area to the south is no man's land.
"It seems that this is the southern border of the principality and some defensive measures should be taken to prevent any eventuality."
Rurik felt that his speculation was correct. Since the waterway can extend all the way to Smolensk, it would be best for the other party to maintain peace. If there is hostility, the other party can go down the river, then New Ostara will be very Sadly, it has once again become a battlefield.
This speculation surprised Carlotta. She once again thought of the horror dominated by the tragedy of corpses in her hometown. As for how to deal with the crisis, she first needed the military protection of the Prince of Rus. In addition, the city of New Ostara must also be fortressed.
Rurik was happy that the cattle and sheep here had the potential to thrive, but his hopes of drinking milk and eating cheese were in vain.
The fleet circled around Lake Ilmen, and all the surrendered farms were inspected by the prince.
Rurik made a very important harvest. He saw those farmlands with his own eyes and compared the wheat growth of different farms. It was obvious that Novgorod and Mstisk used drill technology completely. The layout of wheat was very unique. The effect of regular and simultaneous earing is also better.
The drilling technology of seeds not only brings higher final year-on-year yields, but also saves labor during harvesting.
The wheat harvest season is finally around the corner!
Rurik's fleet had just returned to Mstisk when a light rain came unexpectedly.
The rain came untimely, like the gods were playing a trick on people. The climate in Eastern Europe is always like this. Summer rainfall is always accompanied by severe cooling, especially the rain in August. Even the drizzle makes people feel full of autumn.
Fortunately, this is just rainfall caused by fluctuations in airflow. If there is an arctic cold current going southward wildly, it will cause severe frost disasters and almost destroy this year's autumn harvest. Cold current erosion usually occurs in September, although the possibility of it appearing in August is not high. Once the crops mature, no one dares to go against the gods, and the autumn harvest will never be delayed until September.
The local Slavs are preparing long-handled scythes for the farm, and they are also assisted by a number of short-handled scythes.
The method of autumn harvest is like this. Facing the large fields of the farm, the labor force of the entire farm, both men and women, gathers together.
The men in their prime all wield long-handled scythes. They can be divided into multiple groups, and each group takes turns operating the scythes to achieve the effect of always harvesting with the scythes. The scythe circles the farmland in a semicircle. This process is very dangerous. The wheat stalks are cut down frantically. If there is a person standing in front of him, the scythe will cut off the calf of the person in front of him in one fell swoop.
The chopped wheat stalks and the drooping ears of oats were pushed to both sides by the scythe. Women and children followed closely with hemp ropes and straw ropes, bundling the loose wheat stalks and throwing them onto the two-wheeled cart, or directly Directly resist walking.
Some flat land will be pounded in advance, and stones and wooden piles will be pounded out to create a hard ground that is rare in the local area and used as a threshing ground.
Bundles of wheat straw were unloaded here and were pounded continuously by men holding wooden flails.
Farms that have the conditions will also perform pre-processing, that is, the guillotine will cut off the wheat ears of the bundles of wheat straw, and the flail will only beat the densely gathered wheat ears.
Because every grain of European oats is densely wrapped in bran, breaking out the grains is a manual job and requires a large number of farm laborers.
Although oats have its own disadvantages in harvesting and processing, local people have no choice in their long-term lives. People on the shores of Lake Ilmen traditionally grew only oats, with rye as a supplement.
The people of Novgorod City are also preparing for the extremely traditional autumn harvest. They do not have more advanced wheat harvesting tools, and Rurik currently has no intention of building any more harvesting machinery. Wheat harvesting is still a labor-intensive job, and the advantages of having more people at this time are most vividly displayed.
After the rain comes a sunny day, and the pleasant sunset brings a great sense of security to the Russian immigrants. As the temperature rises, the process of wheat earing and yellowing is greatly accelerated.
When the drooping ears of wheat become withered and yellow, they should be harvested with a sickle.
Even if it is the first time for immigrants from Ross proper to plant wheat on a large scale, everyone still knows how to judge the timing of wheat harvest.
They will personally break open the dense bran of oats and chew them to determine whether the grains are ripe.
After waiting throughout the warm period, Rurik stood here with his army. All the conditions have been mature, and the oats sown first have reached the harvest season!
The total mobilizable labor force (including children) in Mstisk is as many as 4,000 people.
Rurik had no time to care about the wheat harvest in Novgorod, not far away. He focused on the work in the main grain-producing areas that he could firmly control, especially on the wealth of his own acres.
The wheat is also heading, and the ears are still dark green. Their appearance makes the people quite curious, which is naturally not uncommon for Rurik. On the contrary, there were oats everywhere. This situation made Rurik feel strange and regretful that low-yielding oats were planted in the fields.
In Rurik's concept, the evolution of wheat ears from dark green to withered yellow is a very rapid process. Maybe the early oats are harvested and the wheat can be harvested.
Nothing is more important now than the wheat harvest.
It was a clear morning. The sunshine in early August was still warm. The morning fog that filled the entire lake gradually dissipated. The people who had been ordered to assemble were standing on the flat ground outside Mstisk City on the dock facing the lake. The comprehensive unloading yard for ship supplies reserved here is now the most ideal gathering place for personnel.
In front of four thousand men, women and children, Rurik rolled up cardboard into the shape of a trumpet, stood on a tilted trolley, and held up the paper trumpet to preach to his tribe.
"Our immigration work is over! You are all the Russians who have immigrated to the Novgorod region! The land under your feet was conquered by you with the sword and ax of Russia. You sowed the seeds, and now the wheat is ripe! Odin Bless us now as we harvest the wheat, to be accomplished victoriously in two weeks!”
He repeated similar words. At first, there were scattered people cheering, but gradually it turned into a roaring crowd.
Look at these people! The men among them carry scythes on their shoulders in large numbers. The Russians, who have huge iron resources, can use carbon steel tools unscrupulously. A batch of comprehensive scythes made in their homeland now have a wonderful use. .
Strictly speaking, oats, wheat and rye are all derived from miscanthus grasses similar to foxtail grass. Their essence is grass. The so-called autumn harvest of crops and the collection of forage for livestock work in much the same way.
Throughout Europe, scythes are used to harvest crops. This is directly related to the agricultural technology radiation of the Roman Empire a long time ago. Many barbarians converted from fishing and hunting to farming, and they were the first to learn Roman agriculture. They were originally Slavs who lived in the northern border area of Rome. Even if they immigrated to the distant Lake Ilmen, they could not lose the Roman skills they learned. As for several large Germanic tribes, such as the Franks, who had long been mercenaries for the Roman Empire, the expansion of the Franks also spread agricultural technology to the north.
Even though Roman agriculture was not very advanced and was constantly lost in the process of spreading northward, the two crafts of harvesting wheat with scythes and beating hulls with flails can be said to have been inherited by the three northern ethnic groups, the Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic.
There are more than a hundred scythes here in Mstisk. At critical moments, they also made magic modifications to their own steel sabers, because the hilts are mostly made of wooden blocks sandwiching a core of iron sheets and surrounded by hemp rope and tendons. The sword was wrapped in a circle, the hilt was dismantled, and the sword was tied horizontally to a wooden pole, and a simple scythe was born.
The warriors of the First Flag Team had already begun to separate. They took their wives and children and rushed to their fields. A man operating a scythe to cut wheat is like killing an enemy. It feels so satisfying to cut everything off. Women and children are busy gathering wheat, and no one dares to rest more. This is a major issue related to the livelihood of the whole next year. Even if they are so tired that they almost cough up blood, they must continue to fight.
Rurik is holding a long-handled wooden shackle, and the top of this object is a three-section stick tied with a rope. Relying on the whipping effect, he swung the flail and struck hard on the oat stalks piled into hills.
The prince was showing off to his people. He was putting on a show, but not entirely a show, because the pile of oats legally belonged to his cousin's property. He was a prince at that time, but now he is more willing to help his cousin with farm work as a younger brother.
He was sweating profusely and had to use great force during the beating. The accumulating fatigue has made him have no intention of speaking. He just repeats the pounding action and endures the fatigue of his arms until night.
The moon rose, and Rurik, who was sweating profusely, sat quietly by a bonfire. He was accompanied by a group of old guys, all of whom were young men under his command. Everyone had been busy during the first day, but now that they had rest, no one was talking.
Everyone was sweating a lot, and the old clothes had just been given to the women to be washed, and were being placed in sheets by the bonfire to bake. Everyone put on spare clothes, and everyone felt like they had sweated out a lifetime in just one day because of their weakness.
Fisk felt chilled all over, and his three wives and concubines sat beside him to warm themselves by the fire, feeling the same chill.
"Rurik..." Or was he the first to start the conversation, "We will help them harvest wheat, and when we reach our Youth City... they will also help?"
"Hey, we are all Russians, you are actually worried about this? As long as I give an order, the soldiers must obey."
Aric saw the work of Ross's young boys, and he followed his brother's words and promised: "Fisk, you can rest assured, I will not only help you, but also help you build the city."
"Oh! That's great. Thank you so much..."
"No need to thank you! Boy, your father and my father fought side by side and died for Ross in the same battle. You are now the flag captain of the Sixth Flag Team and will have a bright future in the future. I am also your brother, and I should help you. "
But how can Fisker and Arik be brothers? But the other party's words were very heart-warming and more comforting than the flames.
The iron pot and pottery urn are cooking freshly beaten oats. Some yellow root carrots and locally collected fresh oats are added to the cooked oatmeal to increase nutrition, and then a large amount of salt is poured in crazily.
The way for the Principality of Rus to obtain salt has never been to rely on the supply of the Balmoks from the Port of Narvik facing the Atlantic Ocean. The Balmoks provide the best salt, and the cost of purchasing these salts is not high, except for the time cost of logistics. Ridiculously high.
No matter how low the salt content of the seawater in the Gulf of Finland is, it is still seawater. Even if it costs more for firewood, New Rossburg has been doing the work of fetching seawater to boil salt locally. Fortunately, there are inexhaustible local wood resources, so it can obtain Salt is just a way to add more firewood.
In this Novgorod region, no one eats salt more unscrupulously than the Russians.
People who were forced to rest at night achieved great results on the first day of the autumn harvest. Everyone did not want to talk much because of exhaustion. After the hot salty wheat porridge was cooked and everyone regained their strength after a delicious meal, they went back to the bonfire to talk about the mountains. link.
The men boasted about how much wheat they had harvested this year and estimated their wheat wealth. They show off their strong arms and boast that one person can cut several hectares of wheat without knowing what fatigue is.
After boasting about their strength, they started talking about women.
Wherever there are people, there is always comparison. They show off their wives and concubines, and brag that they can give birth to more children than they can count on both hands. At this point, some people began to tease their own princes. Couldn't more than ten wives and concubines be able to give birth to a total of one hundred children? They did not doubt Prince Rurik's ability. First of all, the "April Bull" was tireless, not to mention that he was the son of God, and of course he was different from mortals.
Rurik laughed off the comments he heard about himself.
They could talk about desperately trying to have children with his wife, which made him happy. The Russian people have changed after all. When each man has a large amount of wheat, a couple bids farewell to the past living conditions. They no longer have to selectively cultivate offspring because of limited resources, but have the capital to reproduce unscrupulously. . Besides, this autumn harvest very realistically shows the fact that the population determines the efficiency of the autumn harvest.
If you encounter rainy weather, you must rush to harvest wheat. The weather now is rarely good, but everyone is completely immersed in the joy of the harvest. In line with the good habit of the Russians to store wealth, every household is eager to put away their own crops in two or three days. The fields were harvested cleanly, and finally they were stuffed into the family granary and one-tenth was paid to the prince as tax.
The strong Russian men are generally a head taller than the traditional Slavic farmers in the region, and their bodies are stronger, which is reflected in their greater efficiency in wheat harvesting.
The first oats sown were harvested in just three days. All the wheat grains were shelled, shoveled into coarse sacks with wooden shovels, and packed into the home in packages.
As early as six years ago, the Russians began to improve their homes. Rurik played a huge role in this regard. He made some improvements to the traditional Slavic wood carvings and added closet facilities to enhance winter heating. The wooden floor that is higher than the ground avoids moisture to a great extent. Such woodcuts can be directly used as granaries. Of course, we will still face the problem of rats, which is completely a minor problem.
In this era, the Russians even regarded rats as a kind of food. It was a kind of meat along with squirrels and minks, but the leather of rats was useless. In the past, under difficult circumstances, the people of Russia naturally ate whatever they had, including rotten fish and meat. No one cared about the diarrhea and other diseases caused.
The rodent problem that cannot be eliminated by primitive storage technology is a problem, but Rurik has not bothered to eliminate problems such as moisture and rodents that cause food loss. He needed the people to pack the harvested wheat into their homes quickly, and then continue to sweep through the remaining fields.
People have to harvest the remaining wheat for the Prince of Rus, and all the Prince provides is free food during the harvest.
The men had no complaints, because everyone knew how the prince had used wheat in the past few years. It seemed that everyone was harvesting wheat for the prince, which was indeed the case, but in the end the people benefited. The prince still owns an astonishing area of acres, and now the wheat here has reached the point where it is yellow and can be harvested. The prince's promise remains unchanged. A batch of wheat will be sold to the public every month, and its price will be constant regardless of the bad year or the good year. Everyone can buy a batch of wheat every month and then make delicious soft and waxy scones at home, which is something oats can't do.
The Principality of Rus implements a de facto grain-based policy. The prince prohibits bank runs and stipulates the amount and price of wheat sold every month in the form of laws. The purchasing power of each silver coin is fixed, which is ten pounds of oats and rye. Or nine pounds of wheat. The price of salt is also anchored by wheat.
To ensure the economic stability of the Rus' Principality, it is necessary to ensure that a large amount of wheat is stuffed into the prince's "national granary" located in Novgorod, Novorosberg and Russburg's hometown.
The people's ideological consciousness is not that high, and their vision is not very long-term.
They are more aware of the fact that when a prince calls an army to fight, theoretically every soldier does not have to bring his own dry food. The food for the army is paid by the national granary.
Now the wheat has also matured. It is completely different from the drooping ears of oats. The wheat ears are straight upward like spearheads, and the density of wheat grains is also significantly higher than that of oats. Of course, the wheat ears here are not so dense that you can't stand them. The yield of wheat fields without chemical fertilizers or even farmyard manure will never be high. Even so, it is visibly stronger than oats. The most striking feature is naturally the wheat ears. There can be as many as twenty grains growing on the ear, and everyone has to admire the British cold-resistant wheat variety that is naturally high-yielding!
The men lined up like a battle formation, swung their scythes across the field, and cut down the wheat stalks in pieces. This was the first large-scale planting of wheat on the land of Novgorod. The experimental planting had a huge impact visible to the naked eye. As a result, Rurik made a firm decision - to plant wheat on a large scale in the spring of next year, so that Novgorod, Mstisk and Youth City can make wheat farming their business.
